Sidney the slug said to Bertie the bug
“I wish I’d been born as a snail!
Just give me a shell (and some lettuce as well)
and I’ll dance on the tip of my tail!”
“It’s really unfair and, what’s worse, no-one cares”
said Sidney with tears in his eyes.
“The snail looks cute in his spiral shell-suit,
but I am just hated, despised!”
“For snails eat flowers and nibble for hours
on radishes, cabbage and kale.
we’re really the same and yet I get the blame,
for nobody dislikes a snail”
Bertie sat crying and stammered, replying
“it’s no use to blame evolution.
We’ll find Snail Stan, he will help (if he can)
to think of a simple solution.”
Stan was found munching and crunching his lunch in
the flowerbed next to the marrows.
He said “there’s a chance that my cousin in France
will have a spare shell you could borrow!”
The very next day they set sail for Calais
and travelled by train to Dijon.
They found cousin Lee in the shade of a tree
and they asked for a shell to try on.
The seventeenth shell seemed to fit very well;
Sidney danced on the tip of his tail.
“I feel like a King in this gastropod bling!
Oh, show me a more handsome snail!”
But on his way home he was caught by Jerome
and pan-fried in garlic and butter.
“Resist being vain, it brings nothing but pain!”
were the last words Bert heard Sidney mutter.
Paul Hughes 2008
